Parisian Encounters: Great Loves and Great Passions

By Charles Hobson

Parisian Encounters: Great Loves and Grand Passions focuses on eight relationships that all have Paris as their common bond: Napoleon and Josephine, George Sand and Frederic Chopin, Gustave Flaubert... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811807037
• ISBN13: 9780811807036
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 70 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 11.2" x 6.1"
• Grade Range: Grade 8 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

beautiful work by a master artist

Charles Hobson creates gorgeous, imaginative, unconventional books. This book has an unusual structure, opening out from the middle, with each half of the page dedicated to one half of a pair of famous lovers. It's a lovely and romantic book.

A UNIQUELY CONCEIVED AND EXECUTED VOLUME

For Hemingway Paris was "a moveable feast"; Nietzsche said, "An artist, a man has no home in Europe save Paris." To many it is the city of love; for artist Charles Hobson it is the backdrop for some of the most famous and intriguing liaisons the world has ever known - Napoleon and Josephine, George Sand and Frederic Chopin, Marie and Pierre Curie, Anais Nin and Henry Miller, and others. Uniquely constructed with a gate fold "French door" format, Parisian Encounters blends art and literature to tell the stories of eight famous couples. Collage-like images present portraits of the couples and segments of their handwriting. A brief biographical essay accompanies each portrait. We learn that when Napoleon asked Josephine for an annulment so that he might marry Princess Marie-Louise of Austria, he wrote, "I still love you, but in politics there is no heart, only head." An established poet within Parisian literary society, Louise Colet was 11 year his senior when she met the then unpublished Flaubert. He used her as a sounding board as he created Madame Bovary. The relationships of the couples were complex - "each playing instrumental roles for the other - emotionally, creatively, and intellectually - and this interplay wove their lives together." Parisian Encounters is an original, a wonderfully revelatory volume uniquely conceived and executed. - Gail Cooke

Breathtaking!

Beautiful artwork,fascinating words,mix and match your favorites to design your own "odd couples"! So,besides being a visual delight,this book is also very informative.